Centre gets Supreme Court notice on making essential medicines affordable to poor
The National List of Essential Medicines (NLEM) has 348 drugs, of which the prices of only 37 medicines are controlled by National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority.
By Dhananjay Mahapatra, TNN |
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday wanted to know how serious the Centre was in bringing essential medicines, used by poor patients to fight ailments like tuberculosis, diarrhoea, heart diseases and malaria, under ambit of price control.
The National List of Essential Medicines (NLEM) has 348 drugs, of which the prices of only 37 medicines are controlled by National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority.
A bench of Justices G S Singhvi and S J Mukhopadhaya asked the secretaries of ministry of health and ministry of chemical and fertilizer to file affidavits in four weeks stating whether the Union government wanted to bring the essential medicines under the ambit of price control.
Petitioner All India Drug Action Network, through senior advocate Colin Gonsalves, cited parliamentary committee reports , which said that poor patients were not getting the essential medicines because of spiralling prices.
The bench noted that a 2010 parliamentary standing committee report as well as a 2005 standing committee report of the ministry of chemicals and fertilizers had admitted that essential medicines were not available to the poor at reasonable prices.
The reports had also noted the sharp increase in prices of these drugs and expressed concern over the gradual decrease in the number of essential medicines , which were put under the price control regime.
The National List of Essential Medicines (NLEM) has 348 drugs, of which the prices of only 37 medicines are controlled by National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority.
A bench of Justices G S Singhvi and S J Mukhopadhaya asked the secretaries of ministry of health and ministry of chemical and fertilizer to file affidavits in four weeks stating whether the Union government wanted to bring the essential medicines under the ambit of price control.
Petitioner All India Drug Action Network, through senior advocate Colin Gonsalves, cited parliamentary committee reports , which said that poor patients were not getting the essential medicines because of spiralling prices.
The bench noted that a 2010 parliamentary standing committee report as well as a 2005 standing committee report of the ministry of chemicals and fertilizers had admitted that essential medicines were not available to the poor at reasonable prices.
The reports had also noted the sharp increase in prices of these drugs and expressed concern over the gradual decrease in the number of essential medicines , which were put under the price control regime.
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In the last two decades, the number of essential medicines under price control dropped from 347 to 76. The SC also referred to a letter of the ministry of health, which recommended bringing all essential medicines under price control.Download
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